to her father, are typical imaginary classic
compositions and variations on the artist's favourite theme--the effects
of sunlight on an atmosphere of varying luminosity and on the limpid,
rippling waves of the sea. We now come to the grand monarque of the
arts at Paris during the century, Charles Lebrun (1619-1690), founder of
the Royal Academy of Painting and Sculpture that finally eclipsed the
old Painters' Guild which, from the thirteenth century, had monopolised
the exercise of the art at Paris. So tyrannous had the Guild become
that, in 1646, it ordered the number of court painters to be reduced to
four each for the king and queen. An attempt to apply this regulation to
the painters lodged at the Louvre roused Lebrun's hostility, who induced
the regent, Anne of Austria, to found a rival Academie Royale on the
model of the famous Academy of St. Luke at Florence. Twelve _anciens_
were chosen by lot and the new Academy, Lebrun at its head, was
inaugurated on 1st February 1648. The angry Guild swooped down on the
Academy on 19th March, armed with a police warrant, to seize all its
pictures and effects, a blow which Lebrun parried by a royal decree
annulling the warrant. Hereupon the Guild organised their own Academy of
St. Luke under the leadership of Vouet and Mignard, and after some
temporary reconciliations and as many bickerings and hostilities, Lebrun
won Mazarin's favour by a judicious gift of two paintings, and the
Academie Royale obtained in 1658 a new constitution, an increase of
members to forty, free quarters, and pensions, which, under Colbert,
were raised to 4,000 livres. The Guild fought hard and won some
concessions, but the Academie Royale remained supreme, and both were
finally overwhelmed in the revolutionary storm.

[Illustration: LANDING OF CLEOPATRA AT TARSUS.

_Lorrain._]

In 1661 Lebrun was commanded by Louis XIV. to paint cartoons for
tapestry illustrating the life of Alexander the Great. Five of these
huge canvases hang in this room, R. and L., 509-513; 511, R. wall, The
Family of Darius at Alexander's Feet, so charmed the king that he
appointed Lebrun first royal painter, and granted him a patent of
nobility. For thirty years the royal favourite was sole arbiter of
taste and ruled supreme over the arts, until his star paled before the
rising luminary, his rival Mignard. Lebrun's best work is to be seen
at Versailles, but 510, R. wall, The Battle of Arbela, is an excellent
example of his fac